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Welcome to the lovely, medieval city of Girona, the capital of the northeastern Catalan province of Girona and a region historically inhabited by Iberians, my ancestors.

Surrounding the old town of the city is an ancient, Roman wall that once protected the area, recently reconstructed in some parts. In another part of the old town is the Girona Cathedral (the Cathedral of Saint Mary of Girona), restored in 1015 and redesigned around the renaissance era. Next to the Onyar river are houses reconstructed to resemble houses by the Arno river in Florence, Italy (I like the Italian ones better. More authentic. Peh).

Though it is a very picturesque town with a lot to offer, it is more famous being one of the locations filmed for scenes in Game of Thrones, episode 10 from season 6. Look it up because I won’t. I haven’t seen it. Don’t kill me.

Because out of all the places I’ve visited in Barcelona, this was my favorite. This was where I stayed at, just off to the side in the heart of La Rambla. This was what I greeted me in the morning and what tucked me in at night. It almost seems like a pattern to a lot of places I love.

Ok, enough of that. Now for some quick facts: history of La Rambla dates back to the middle ages when it was formerly just a seasonal stream bed filled with sewage. Nowadays, it’s the central street of Barcelona, filled with ridiculously tall tourists, pickpockets and locals alike.

These shots were taken under the influence of a two-liter sized mojito the very first night I landed in Spain. Seriously, like I just landed I’d say about three and a half hours prior to these pictures being taken. After taking a cab, dropping off my stuff in the hotel room, a very large glass of mojito and plate of paella later, I was off. Right in the middle of the night. There were colorful bars, tapas, souvenir shops and cafes everywhere. Occasionally, I’d run into one of those women-of-the-night, inconspicuously standing by one of those tall tables, alone with a suspicious-looking, empty soda can. I still don’t get that. Was the soda can supposed to signal something?

Fun fact! As stated from my last post, the first time I ever set foot in San Francisco was on the same year when I first moved to the country. It was on the way back from a road trip to Canada and it involved nine people and a van with a dead deer inside. Fun times!

Anyway, I’ve forgotten how difficult it is to play tourist in San Francisco, until I had to be one. Walking was painful and driving was absolutely terrifying.

There once was this Caltech Quantum Physicist who also doubled as a world-traveling photographer. He had piles and piles of films and slides of places he had traveled to, anywhere from across the U.S. to South America, Asia, Europe and Africa. And amongst these photographs were pictures of people from different countries, natives from indigenous tribes. And in these photographs, the subjects were always smiling and holding in their hands a square Polaroid shot of themselves.

This, he told me, was his way of returning the favor of allowing him to photograph them. He always had a Polaroid camera handy so that whenever he asked a stranger for a picture, he would give them a copy with a Polaroid shot. Never offer to pay them with cash, he warned me. Or else you’ll only encourage them to rely on tourists taking their pictures for money. Which, of course, would take away their authenticity and start off this whole commercializing mess.

And that brings me Venice Beach, the drugged-up cousin of Santa Monica Beach.

It’s an awesome place to take pictures. You just have to “tip” for every single, freakin’ shot you take. I don’t know how it started, if one day a tourist came across a psychedelic pothead and thought, “hmmm, that’s something you don’t see in <insert small midwestern town> everyday” and then decided to tip him a dollar for a picture and thus instigating the entire pay-me-for-pictures concept.

But I get it. I do. Some of these folks are real, hard-working artists just trying to get by, really no different from any other street artists.

But then you do have these other ones that are just plain old tourist bait (me being one of those baited tourists, as you can see below).

But if you look long and hard enough, you can across random things you can shoot for free.

Like these:

This one below was an abandoned sand sculpture. I have no idea what it used to be, but hey, it still had some spiffy details and the culprit was no longer around to charge me a dollar for a shot.

These Dia de los Muertos skull shots below weren’t exactly free. I had to purchase one these suckers just so I could shoot them.

And finally, probably my favorite shots out of all (and the one that least likely screams “Venice Beach!”), a puppy. And it was free.